


you've made of me a morning

by closingdoors



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Charity Dingle is a Softie, Drunk!Vanessa is the love of my life, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 21:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18081572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closingdoors/pseuds/closingdoors
Summary: Vanessa drinks a little too much. Charity and Rhona have an overdue conversation.Set some time after the proposal.





	you've made of me a morning

if kissing glitches subjectivity,  
you’ve made of me a morning, shined on God.

**Kissing Against Solipsism, Jessica Morey-Collins**

 

* * *

 

 

The night is beginning to draw to a close. Stars swim through the sky, clamouring to illuminate the colour in Vanessa's eyes, shimmering blue like fresh water.

She's getting soft, and maybe it's the drink, but it's something more potent than that too. She watches Vanessa's curls bounce with every step she takes, arm threaded through Rhona's, always looking back over her shoulder to make sure Charity's following them, and Charity knows that she doesn't mind being soft. Not like this. Not for Vanessa.

Vanessa twirls when they reach Rhona's house, muddying her new heels, holding her hands above her head. There's a sort of sereneness to her. Charity wants to live on the stretch of her smile.

"What are you doing?" She asks instead, taking Vanessa's arm and pulling her back onto the path. "Couple of drinks and you think you're Fred Astaire." 

Vanessa loops her arms around Charity's neck, listing into her body. She's warm and pleasant and still smells faintly of raspberries under all the alcohol. Charity lets her nails bite against the material of Vanessa's dress. Rhona clears her throat behind them.

"Thanks for the night out." Charity drags her eyes away from her fiancée and find Rhona's watching them with a genuine smile. "God knows it's been a while since I've laughed that much."

"Yeah, well, you're not all that bad once you take that stick out your backside."

"Aw, don't listen to her, Rhona," Vanessa whines, twisting out of Charity's grip and draping herself over her friend, cheek to her shoulder, "you're the  _best_."

"Uh, fiancée, standing right here."

Vanessa sticks her tongue out at her. Charity rolls her eyes. 

"I'd better head in," Rhona says, carefully shifting Vanessa's drunken weight back to Charity and rifling through her bag for her keys. "And  _you_ need to learn how to handle your alcohol. You're putting our uni days to shame." 

Vanessa wraps her arms around Charity's middle, grinning against her collarbone. She feels the sharp dig of teeth against the thin skin and just as she goes to squeeze Vanessa's hip in return, her fiancée jerks away like she's burnt her.

"Babe?"

Vanessa's a peaky shade of green. "I'm gonna be sick."

Rhona's keys jingle as she shoves the door open. Vanessa rushes past her, staggering precariously up the stairs, and slams the bathroom door shut. Charity and Rhona are left staring at each other as they hear Vanessa empty her stomach contents upstairs.

Rhona sighs. "I'll get some water."

 

* * *

 

 

Charity slips Vanessa's heels from her feet. There's a little clasp around the ankles that she has to unlatch and she lets her fingers brush against Vanessa's bare skin. It's thin, the skin here, and on her right ankle she can see blue veins blooming beneath it. 

Vanessa rests her cheek against the bowl of the toilet, watching Charity quietly. Once Charity sets the heels aside, she looks up, catching Vanessa with her eyes half-lidded, the way they always are when she's thinking deeply about something. She wonders when she started to care so much about the little details instead of grand gestures.

"I must look a right state," Vanessa murmurs.

One of her bracelets had tangled in her hair as she'd fled up here, leaving her curls a mess as they fall along her shoulders. Mascara's smudged beneath her eyes and along her cheeks watery and uneven. Her lipstick's smeared halfway up her cheek and along her forearm.

Charity leans forwards and presses a small kiss to her fiancée's cheek. 

When she pulls away, she wrinkles her nose. "You've had better days." 

Vanessa laughs tiredly, threading her fingers with Charity's in her lap. Her index finger draws a line across her palm. 

"M'tired," she complains, pouting.

"Let's get a move on then, buttercup," Charity replies, shifting to help Vanessa stand. "Jesus, you're heavy."

"Charming," Vanessa snorts against her shoulder. She stops Charity before they can even take one step. "I can't feel my legs." 

"For the love of -" 

"You can stay here tonight."

Rhona's already in her pyjamas. She leans against the doorway, watching Charity struggle to hold Vanessa upright, a pile of blankets in her hands.

"Nice jim jams." 

Vanessa slumps against her. "Stop being mean, Charity."

Rhona disappears for a moment and when she returns, her hands are free. Rhona winds Vanessa's other arm around her shoulders and together, they shuffle Vanessa into the spare room. The sheets are already made up, the pillows freshly plumped by the looks of things, and Vanessa drops down to the mattress heavily. Charity tucks her in with only mild complaint while Rhona potters about getting her a glass of water and some aspirin for the morning. 

Vanessa hums, instantly curling up into a ball and taking all of the duvet with her. Charity tucks her hair behind her ear with a soft smile, all too aware of Rhona's gaze on them.

"Love you," Vanessa half-sings into the pillow.

Her mouth goes slack as she passes out.

Charity snorts. "Regular old Casanova, you are."

There's a strange expression on Rhona's face. Something like jealousy - and that doesn't sit well with her - mixed with neutrality. She can't make out what it means, and considering she's learned how to read people as a form of self-defense, it unsettles her.

"Coffee?" Rhona offers.

"Make it Irish." 

 

* * *

 

 

They settle on a decent brew instead. Charity drifts through Rhona's living room. She doesn't know why she's surprised to find Vanessa features in a lot of the photos Rhona has hanging up - even in a couple paintings Leo's done, too, out on display proudly. Charity smiles to herself, pressing the pad of her index finger against the sunshine-yellow he used for Vanessa's hair.

"You know, she used to be able to handle her alcohol." 

Rhona enters the room and passes Charity her mug. She settles on the sofa, pulling a mint-green cushion onto her lap as she watches Charity drink in the details of her living room. Charity tries to feign indifference.

"Yeah?"

"Oh yes. I used to watch her outdrink grown men twice her size. She'd still be standing afterwards."

Charity frowns, looking down at her mug. She thinks about how much she can outpace Vanessa with drink. She thinks too much about her father.

"What was she like, back then?" Charity finds herself asking, sitting on the other end of the sofa. "Different?" 

Rhona considers this with a sip of her tea. "Yes and no. She didn't have Johnny, so she was _way_ more of a party girl, that's for sure. Gobby, but you already know that." She waits for Charity smirk into her tea. "She was very private."

"Private? Little miss therapist?"

"I'm serious. She knew everything about me. She knew my parents, knew all my friends from back home, knew every single one of my secrets. It was a while before I realised I didn't really know anything about her. Not anything of substance, anyway. I didn't even know about her dad."

"Maybe you were just a rubbish friend."

"Maybe I was. More recently than not." Rhona meets her eyes. "I assume she told you about how I acted on painkillers." 

Charity purses her lips, looking away. "Maybe."

"I was dreadful to her."

"You used her."

The words fall out of her mouth. They're sharp but she can't bring herself to regret them. Not when she thinks about how pained Vanessa's expression had been as she'd told Charity what Rhona's addiction had been like for her. She thinks about searching for her eyes in the dark, trying to reassure her that she would never willingly hurt her like Rhona had. She'd walk through fire before she'd let any harm come to her.

"Pot. Kettle."

Charity growls in the back of her throat. "I'd never use her."

"Yet you've had no problems with using people before. Why is she different?"

"Why is she - ?" Charity repeats incredulously. She looks back to Rhona and finds her watching her with her head tilted to one side, like they could be talking about the weather. "What is  _wrong_ with you?" 

There's no need for an explanation, not in her eyes. Vanessa's different to anyone she's ever been with. She's gentle and calm with Charity's sharp edges and spiteful words. Yet she's strong, firm, she doesn't let Charity trample all over her. They balance each other out. She doesn't begrudge Charity if sometimes she clings to her too tightly, or holds her at arms length. She can't picture her life without her, even if she hadn't expected it to turn out like this. One day she didn't love Vanessa, and then she did. 

And Vanessa stays. She stays and stays and stays.

Charity has never known permanency like it.

Rhona smiles wryly. "You really love her."

"Better than you ever could."

Her smile drops. "Look, Charity - "

"Did you not think about what that does to a person? Didn't you think about her for even a second?"

"I tried. I tried to love her."

"You can't just  _try,_ " Charity rants, waving her arms. Hot tea splashes over the sides of the mug and on her arms. "You either do or you don't. It's not something you force."

She doesn't know how anyone could look at Vanessa and not love her.

Rhona frowns, resting her temple against her knuckles.

"You know, when I was in rehab, I realised I  _wanted_ to love her. She's my best friend. She's  _safe,"_ Rhona beseeches. A sheen of tears gathers in her eyes. "No matter what, Vanessa has always been right there, standing right behind me. Through everything. I used her for drugs and she defended me for it. I came back from rehab and she was waiting for me. I accused her of all sorts of things with Pierce, yet she didn't give up on me, even if everyone else had. How could I not want to love her?"

Jealousy licks through Charity, quick and hot. It makes her shoulders straighten and her chin rise, just a fraction, but enough that Rhona shakes her head.

"You don't have to be jealous, Charity. I'm not attracted to women. Besides, Vanessa would never leave you. I've never seen her with anyone the way she is with you." 

"You haven't?" Charity asks too quickly.

"Why is that such a shock?" Rhona returns, a little amused. "She tried to take on an arsonist at your pub to protect you."

That guilt Vanessa had helped clear away flares up again. Charity clears her throat.

"Yeah, well, you don't have to go on about it."

"Sorry, I wasn't blaming - "

"S'alright if you do. Trust me, it took me a long time to be able to breathe properly when she wasn't in my sight after that."

She hasn't spoken about this with anyone. Not even Vanessa, not really. It'd made her want to drink. Whenever she'd go home and Vanessa was still at the hospital, her throat would constantly feel parched. She'd pour away every glass of wine she poured. Because drink wouldn't take the guilt away, just like it hadn't taken the pain of Bails away. Vanessa had done that. She'd shown her a place to set the bad things down, how to turn a wreckage into salve, and then she'd almost lost her because of her own ego.

Sometimes, she wakes up, and for a second she forgets where she is, and she's right back there, seeing Vanessa too small and pale and  _bleeding_ on the floor. 

"I tried to warn Vanessa off of you, you know."

"Maybe you're not as bad a friend as I thought."

"I thought you'd hurt her like I did," Rhona admits.

Charity scratches at her knee. "Here's the thing, kid. I never messed with Vanessa's head for fun. It's how people treat me, yeah? It's how they'd always treated me until Vanessa. So I thought that's what I was supposed to do to get her to notice me. I wanted her to notice me." 

"You got her attention alright." 

"In the end, yeah," Charity replies with an uneasy smile. She knows it's not a matter of  _in the end._ She and Vanessa had felt sort of inevitable from the first kiss. It'd been fun, it'd had laughter bubbling in her chest constantly, and it had all been so easy that she couldn't believe it. "Bit rocky sometimes."

"Doesn't help when you steal other people's proposals."

"Oh, look who's getting too big for her boots."

"I don't know how you got her to say yes."

"Because I love her and I'm not fumbling around with her just for drugs," she snaps. Rhona shrinks and Charity scrubs a hand across her eyes. "Sorry." 

"It's alright," Rhona says quietly.

"No, it's - " She sucks in a deep breath. This is all Vanessa's fault, this honesty spilling out of her. Even the version of her six months ago, she'd be climbing the walls to snatch back all of the words she's let run free between her and Rhona tonight. Yet she can't stop it. She's never needed anyone's approval, and she's never had a reason to even  _want_ Rhona's, but she thinks somewhere deep down it smarts that she and Vanessa are engaged and even the people closest to her don't understand why. "Vanessa's the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"Me too."

"I don't deserve her." She picks at a loose thread on her blazer. "But most of the time I don't think anyone is good enough to deserve her."

Rhona snorts lightly. "I think that's the first thing we've ever agreed on."

She meets Rhona's eyes, and realises Rhona understands more than she lets on.

Charity raises her mug between them to cheers.

"Thanks for looking after her all these years. Until I got here."

Rhona knocks her mug against Charity's. "Thanks for loving her."

"I've never needed thanking for that."

Rhona looks like she wants to reply, but she keeps her mouth closed, and Charity thinks she knows what it is she was going to say anyway.

They finish their teas in pleasant silence. She finds that she doesn't hate Rhona's company quite as much as she thought she would. Yet she itches to go upstairs, to sleep by her fiancée even if she'll undoubtedly hog the duvet and her feet will be too cold and she'll complain about Charity's snoring. Vanessa is so wonderfully, unapologetically  _real._

"The offer's there for you too, you know. You can stay here the night," Rhona tells her.

"Not scared I'm gonna rough up all your stuff?"

"You've already got Vanessa, haven't you?" Rhona grins slyly. "And she told me she likes it when you're rough."

 

* * *

 

 

When she wakes, Vanessa's watching her. Her hair's pulled up in a bun, a few stray wisps curling at her jaw. Charity's heart thumps a little quicker in her chest.

"Hi," Vanessa croaks.

"Hi," Charity whispers back.

They meet in the middle for the kiss. Vanessa tastes of toothpaste and Charity smiles against her lips.

"Did you brush your teeth to kiss me?" 

"I like kissing you," Vanessa returns, punctuating it with a short and sharp kiss that makes Charity's toes curl. "You stayed."

"Didn't have much choice, did I? You came over all faint like a Victorian woman. Thought you were about to whip out a fan and call for the butler." 

"You stayed," Vanessa trills again, smiling wider.

Vanessa threads her fingers through Charity's hair, rolling them until Charity's on top of her. Their legs twist and hips brush and Vanessa's breath comes heavy and hot against her lips. Charity groans, digging her fingers into Vanessa's sides. Vanessa arches up into her touch. 

She's never wanted anyone like she wants Vanessa. There's no agenda to them when they're like this. Maybe it's wrong that she's grateful that she can be this open with someone in bed. That she can laugh when Vanessa's fingers get caught up in her hair, or when she huffs because Charity's still wearing her jumpsuit and she can't find the zipper. Maybe it's wrong that she's never had this with anyone before, this easy happiness, this bubblegum love.

Or maybe it's just right that she's only ever had this with Vanessa.

Vanessa's fingers find her zipper. Charity stills her hand, pulling away breathlessly.

"What's wrong?" Vanessa asks.

"Nothing," she replies honestly. Vanessa's eyes crinkle around the edges when she smiles and Charity thinks she understands now how entire civilisations could go to war over a beautiful woman. "Maybe we shouldn't give Rhona nightmares this early in the morning. You don't exactly know how to be quiet, babe."

"You care what Rhona thinks," Vanessa teases.

"What? No I don't."

She scowls as best as she can, but so much of her thaws around Vanessa. Vanessa's head tips back when she laughs and Charity lets her hand skim down the length of Vanessa's neck, in awe of how much softness  _she_ gets to touch.

Vanessa shifts against the pillow, narrowing her eyes. "Did something happen?" 

"No."

"You're acting weird." 

"I'm in love with you," she replies, "I think I'm supposed to act weird."

Vanessa pulls her down for another kiss that holds too much temptation. Charity sighs into it, letting her body fall gentle against Vanessa's. 

She doesn't understand why it is Vanessa stays with her, most of the time. Sure, she can make her laugh, but stability doesn't come naturally to her, and she'd spent a few months being too drunk to really pay any attention to her during the Bails trial. It doesn't make sense that someone as wonderful as Vanessa wants her.

"Did Rhona really try to warn you off me?"

Vanessa's hands still against the back of her neck. "She told you about that?"

"We had a little chat. Girl to girl. Next thing we'll be braiding each other's hair and talking about boys." 

"You'd better not," Vanessa warns, but it's light, and she reaches up to brush her index finger against Charity's temple. "I didn't listen to her."

"Why?"

"I knew what I wanted."

Charity inhales sharply.

"Really?"

"Really."

She drops her forehead to Vanessa's. "I'm really glad you didn't listen to Rhona."

"Me too," Vanessa breathes out against her lips. 

 

* * *

 

 

Rhona makes them both breakfast. She and Vanessa natter about stuff at work and Charity tunes out, studying them. Rhona orients herself towards Vanessa, open and honest. Vanessa takes a bite of her toast between speaking, comfortable in this home, with the woman she's known for decades, despite the obstacles that have come between them. Something settles inside of Charity's chest that she doesn't have a name for.

Rhona waves goodbye at the door as they leave. Vanessa links her arm with Charity's on the walk back to the pub. Charity finds her mind wandering away from her.

"Penny for them?"

"What?"

"Your thoughts," Vanessa answers.

They stop in the doorway to The Woolpack. It's still closed this early on a Sunday. There's no-one else around, and it feels like it's just her and Vanessa, and the sounds of birds singing good morning to each other.

"D'you know how amazing you are?" Charity asks.

Vanessa does that uncomfortable smile thing she always does whenever Charity compliments her. That feeling in her chest roars. 

"Charity - "

"I know I don't say it enough," she interrupts, "but I think you're absolutely brilliant, Vanessa Woodfield. You don't give yourself enough credit for the things you've been through. You deserve better than how Rhona treated you, how I treat you sometimes, and you're too forgiving for your own good, and I love you. And from here on out, I'm gonna keep telling you that. "  

Vanessa steps closer and Charity cups her cheeks. She thinks this must be what it's like to hold sunlight in her palms. 

"I don't need you to say it," Vanessa murmurs, eyes so blue, like a clear sky after a storm, "I already believe it."

 


End file.
